Equip for Your Scenario

BFL13 wrote:
In full sun at noon last week my 255w panel lying flat on the roof was putting 4.5 amps into a low SOC four- battery bank. (During a brief sunny break) Not much use there.

However driving around was putting 25 amps in from alternator charging, which beats the 5 amps from 7-pin with the truck and 5er. I know I can improve on that 25 amps if need be, but we just got this thing and there are other priorities.

The big thing was I did not need the generator at all, which is good, because I can't fit the Honda 3000i into the Class C compartments yet. ( I could if I remove the skids from the bottom of the Honda, so that is a possible)

I could get by with a lower amp charger, smaller gen, using more gen time as now allowed away from the park, but adding in AH from driving around and any solar that comes in. Different equipment requirements and less expensive at that. The Class C has some advantages over the 5er for that side of things. Some other things were better with the 5er but nothing to do with batteries etc.

We are pleased with the switch over at this stage of our RVing life--just thought it was interesting about how you can get away with less equipment set-up for off-grid in our scenario.

BF ..... you're sure preaching to the choir here. It's good to have you finally come over to the non-solar-slave dark side! ;)

We're not squatter campers. We camp here and there only a few days at each spot, so we often find that either the sun isn't out at all or it's not out enough. For this style of RV'ing in a motorhome with fat wiring between a big alternator and the coach batteries ... mixed in with some Honda or Onan time when in a campsite ... we have all that's needed to keep up our fast charging AGM coach batteries.

We can't count on the sun being there when we need it .... only generators and alternators. To us the humming of a generator or whirring of an alternator is the sound of independence.